The Maple Leafs might have to move out one or two $2 to $4 million players this offseason
Kevin McGrann of the Toronto Star: The flat salary cap is not going to do the Toronto Maple Leafs any favors over the next three years. They’ll have $3.7 million in cap space heading into the offseason with 18 players under contract.
RFAs include Travis Dermott and Ilya Mikheyev, and UFAs Tyson Barrie, Cody Ceci, Kyle Clifford, Jason Spezza, Frederik Gauthier and Denis Malgin.
One or two roster players will likely have to be moved this offseason – players in the $2 to $4 million per season price range. Options could include Zach Hyman, Alexander Kerfoot, Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen, Justin Holl.
Teams and free agents will likely have to take a different approach than originally planned
Jimmy Murphy of Boston Hockey Now: Jack DeBrusk’s agent Rick Valette said that when negotiations with Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney start, they need to remember that every time coach Bruce Cassidy challenged DeBrusk, he met the challenge.
Not specifically referring to DeBrusk, but Valette adds that the new CBA and flattening of the salary cap will affect all free agents and change most teams of offseason plans.
“I think that all teams, not only the Bruins, are going to be looking at that very closely,” Valette told BHN. “With this pandemic, this is a bit of a new world in some respects – and when I say new world, we were at $81.5 (million) this season, so it’s not like the cap went down so we’re dealing with a flat cap – I think that teams were planning on – and I’m not speaking about Jake’s case here so there’s a difference. Generally speaking across the league, I think teams were expecting the cap to continually rise given revenue streams that were on the horizon. …television deal, etc… and now we know for sure that we’re going to be at $81.5 so that’s going to change some thinking across the league.”
Top UFAs may have to take shorter deals than they may have hoped.
“Let’s talk about UFA’s for a bit. There are some really good UFA’s coming into the market this year and it’s going to be hard on those UFA’s. They might take a shorter-term deal than they normally would just to get past some of the uncertainty I’d call it. I think this is a possibility and there are so many new possibilities.”